My sister (who happens to be a proud lesbian wife and mother) sent this statement to me (see italicized article below). I thought it was very poignant and well written. It is sad that on the same day that the United States of America made history by electing a black man to the highest office in the nation, several states also chose to deny their citizens the right to have a legal family. Forty years ago during the Civil Rights Movement, who would have thought that someday we’d be electing a black man to the presidency; a member of a race that was once so discriminated against! I only hope that it doesn’t take the same amount of time for people to wake up and realize that gays and lesbians are humans who are equally deserving of the right to wed whomever they choose. There was a time when it was illegal to marry interracially. It was eventually decided that this was discriminatory and interracial marriage was legalized. Discrimination, in my opinion, is vastly more immoral than gay marriage, no matter what your opinion of it is. I'm not here to tell you your opinion on homosexuality is wrong. I may disagree with it, but you can think what you want. I do however, take issue with people who exude extreme hatred towards this group of people that they don’t even know.
I dare someone to say to my face (or my sister's!) that she is not deserving of the equal rights that we as heterosexual citizens are entitled to. Look into the eyes of those you are hurting and tell them face to face that they are less than you. These are wonderful people who are only trying to make a life for themselves and their families. What more could one ask for? That’s all I’m trying to do with me and mine. I love my sister tremendously and am so proud of the woman she has become, despite all odds, and the daughters she is raising. I support her 100% with her lifestyle and love her spouse equally. If nothing else, I hope that with time, people start to open their eyes to the reality that the world is a chaotic, ever-changing place and humanity will continue to change and introduce new, strange and foreign ideas to us. If we are to successfully survive as a society, we must adapt to them. I’m constantly adapting to my surroundings (being non-LDS in a predominantly LDS state will do that to you!) and find myself at peace when I am open to other cultures and ideologies.Written by Joe Solmonese - President, Human Rights Campaign
On Tuesday night, our community felt the emotions of electing a pro-equality President and expanding our numbers in Congress and state houses across the country, but the next morning our hearts were broken as the dust settled and it was clear we lost the marriage ballot measures in California, Florida and Arizona. I will certainly provide you with further insight in the coming days to how we effectively organized and motivated LGBT voters in elections throughout the country, but today, as we find ourselves in this agonizing intersection of victory and defeat, I felt it was important to try and give some perspective about our losses.
I've drafted the following op-ed that I wanted to share with you. I know that mere words aren't enough to provide the salve for our wounds that we desperately need but perhaps they will begin to shape a path for how we move forward. And for those of you who gave your time and resources, your sacrifices were not in vain. You've helped lay the foundation for the victory that will one day be ours. And I thank you.
You can't take this away from me: Proposition 8 broke our hearts, but it did not end our fight.
Like many in our movement, I found myself in Southern California last weekend. There, I had the opportunity to speak with a man who said that Proposition 8 completely changed the way he saw his own neighborhood. Every "Yes on 8" sign was a slap. For this man, for me, for the 18,000 couples who married in California, to LGBT people and the people who love us, its passage was worse than a slap in the face. It was nothing short of heartbreaking.
But it is not the end. Fifty-two percent of the voters of California voted to deny us our equality on Tuesday, but they did not vote our families or the power of our love out of existence; they did not vote us away.
As free and equal human beings, we were born with the right to equal families. The courts did not give us this right—they simply recognized it. And although California has ceased to grant us marriage licenses, our rights are not subject to anyone's approval. We will keep fighting for them. They are as real and as enduring as the love that moves us to form families in the first place. There are many roads to marriage equality, and no single roadblock will prevent us from ultimately getting there.
And yet there is no denying, as we pick ourselves up after losing this most recent, hard-fought battle, that we've been injured, many of us by neighbors who claim to respect us.
By the same token, we know that we are moving in the right direction. In 2000, California voters passed Proposition 22 by a margin of 61.4% to 38.6%. On Tuesday, fully 48% of Californians rejected Proposition 8. It wasn't enough, but it was a massive shift. Nationally, although two other anti-marriage ballot measures won, Connecticut defeated an effort to hold a constitutional convention ending marriage, New York's state legislature gained the seats necessary to consider a marriage law, and FMA architect Marilyn Musgrave lost her seat in Congress. We also elected a president who supports protecting the entire community from discrimination and who opposes discriminatory amendments.
Yet on Proposition 8 we lost at the ballot box, and I think that says something about this middle place where we find ourselves at this moment. In 2003, twelve states still had sodomy laws on the books, and only one state had civil unions. Four years ago, marriage was used to rile up a right-wing base, and we were branded as a bigger threat than terrorism. In 2008, most people know that we are not a threat. Proposition 8 did not result from a popular groundswell of opposition to our rights, but was the work of a small core of people who fought to get it on the ballot. The anti-LGBT message didn't rally people to the polls, but unfortunately when people got to the polls, too many of them had no problem with hurting us. Faced with an economy in turmoil and two wars, most Californians didn't choose the culture war. But faced with the question—brought to them by a small cadre of anti-LGBT hardliners – of whether our families should be treated differently from theirs, too many said yes.
But even before we do the hard work of deconstructing this campaign and readying for the future, it's clear to me that our continuing mandate is to show our neighbors who we are.
Justice Lewis Powell was the swing vote in Bowers, the case that upheld Georgia's sodomy law and that was reversed by Lawrence v. Texas five years ago. When Bowers was pending, Powell told one of his clerks "I don't believe I've ever met a homosexual." Ironically, that clerk was gay, and had never come out to the Justice. A decade later, Powell admitted his vote to uphold Georgia's sodomy law was a mistake.
Everything we've learned points to one simple fact: people who know us are more likely to support our equality.
In recent years, I've been delivering this positive message: tell your story. Share who you are. And in fact, as our families become more familiar, support for us increases. But make no mistake: I do not think we have to audition for equality. Rather, I believe that each and every one of us who has been hurt by this hateful ballot measure, and each and every one of us who is still fighting to be equal, has to confront the neighbors who hurt us. We have to say to the man with the Yes on 8 sign—you disrespected my humanity, and I am not giving you a pass. I am not giving you a pass for explaining that you tolerate me, while at the same time denying that my family has a right to exist. I do not give you permission to say you have me as a "gay friend" when you cast a vote against my family, and my rights.
Wherever you are, tell a neighbor what the California Supreme Court so wisely affirmed: that you are equal, you are human, and that being denied equality harms you materially. Although I, like our whole community, am shaken by Prop 8's passage, I am not yet ready to believe that anyone who knows us as human beings and understands what is at stake would consciously vote to harm us.
This is not over. In California, our legal rights have been lost, but our human rights endure, and we will continue to fight for them.
Alright. I'm stepping off the soapbox for now. Those are my two cents.
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